The wording for the above two choices is identical, which suggests that there isn't much difference between the two options. We should probably change the wording to distinguish between the two cases. I don't know what the correct wording should be, so I hope someone can provide a good answer below.

1 Answer
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I was trying to think of a good way to clarify the differences here, and then realized: no one besides moderators should ever seen both of those options. Even users with > 20K reputation can't delete open questions, and already-closed questions don't appear in that list anyway.

So I assume you saw this on Academia, where you're a moderator. Given that context, I think we can afford to be a bit lazy with this and simply change the delete description to:

Delete if this question cannot be fixed and should be removed immediately.

As a moderator, you should be fairly comfortable with the delete function (since it's available to you everywhere all the time) and know when to use it and when not to.

Looking back at this now, I have no idea what site I was on when I received that. Unfortunately (or fortunately, maybe), we have no low-quality posts in the queue now on Academia, so I'll have to wait to verify if that's where I saw it. Either way, that suggestion sounds great to me.
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eykanalDec 7 '12 at 18:55